Laundromat
Sound of spinning. Fresh ‘meadowy’ scent in the air. Newscasters mumbling over a tv screen high up in a corner. A row of chairs. On one side washers, on the other, dryers.
His head throbbed.
He read the Economist he had brought. The words kept escaping him. Just one article, and i’ll take a break. His eyes scrolled ahead for the red square that marked the end of an article. It was not far away. He finished it. Internal sigh.
His head throbbed.
The machines spun. The lady who had opened the laundromat this morning, talked to a customer in Spanish. He could not make out what they were saying. Usually, he was curious. Right now, his head hurt so much.
His head throbbed. He could hear it in his ears now, like when he sometimes heard his heart pounding in his ears. His head was throbbing now. A low, dull ache.
The laundromat was bright but his eyes were glazing over it, just as they had been skimming over the text earlier. There was an elderly Caucasian lady, a middle aged Caucasian couple, a jolly African man, and someone he could not place, probably Hispanic, this was the woman talking in Spanish to the lady at the counter. Finally the woman who opened the door this morning. She was folding clothes, for the customers who had dropped off their clothes, paid to have them laundered and dried.
The air was hot, and semi moist.
His head throbbed.
He placed his forearms on the cool table - one of three - that was placed so that people could fold their clothes as they took them out of the dryer. Right now there were none. It was still early. People were not done with their clothes yet. He looked at his washing machine, No. 5. The red digital numbers said there were 7 minutes left.
His head throbbed. Internally he was screaming. He clenched his eyes shut. The pain turned into darkness.
He smelled the sharp acrid smell of detergent, clean and nice, the feeling it gave was like the headiness that comes from gasoline. The floor felt soft and smooth.
His head throbbed, the pain was becoming a lot, throbbing, screaming, humming, laughing.
It was as if claws were inside his head, stretching, he knew what would come next. They were stretching now, soon they would start scratching. And then the internal pain would begin. This was nothing, the real show was about to begin.
The washer read one. As the humming of the newscasters continued, he stood by the machine, and waited for it to slow down. A shrill short lived scream told him it had. He put the clothes in a metal trolley and slid over to the dryer. Put in his three coins, one after the other, after the other.
Pressed hot. Pressed start.
The throbbing grew louder. Screams which were beginning to dawn in a new age of pain, the lights of which would fade only as the darkness crept in from the sewers. And the darkness, it was a-comin’.